Not everyone thought it was adorable in when a 13-year-old blogger named Tavi was given a front-row seat at the fashion shows of Marc Jacobs,Rodarte and others. Within a matter of months,Tavi Gevinson,the author of a blog called Style Rookie,was feted by designers,filming promotions for Target and flown to Tokyo for a party with the label Comme des Garçons. It was what the arrival of Gevinson,as a blogger,represented that ruffled feathers among the fashion elite. Anne Slowey,who has spent decades climbing the editorial ladder to a senior position at Elle,dismissed the teenagers column as a bit gimmicky in the New York magazine. The subtext in her complaint was read by dozens of Gevinsons fans as an example of the tension between old media and new. As a new phenomenon in the crowded arena of journalists whose specialty it is to report the news of the catwalks,bloggers have ascended from the nosebleed seats to the front row with such alacrity that a long-held code among editors,one that prizes position and experience,has been obliterated. After all,what is one to think besides publicity stunt when Bryan Boy,a pseudonymous,style-obsessed blogger from the Philippines,is seated at the D & G show in Milan between the august front-row fixtures of Vogue and Vanity Fair,a mere two positions to the right of Anna Wintour? There has been a complete change this year, said Kelly Cutrone,who has been organising fashion shows since 1987. Do I think,as a publicist,that I now have to have my eye on some kid whos writing a blog in Oklahoma as much as I do on an editor from Vogue? Absolutely. Because once they write something on the Internet,its never coming down. At a time when magazines like Vogue,W,Glamour and Bazaar have pared their staffs and undergone deep cutbacks because of the impact of the recession on their advertising sales,blogs have made remarkable strides in gaining both readership and higher profiles. Blogs are posting images and reviews of collections before the last model exits the runway,while magazine editors are still jockeying to feature those clothes in issues that will be published months later. Sure,magazines and newspapers have started their own blogs and tweets,but reading them,you often sense a generational disconnect.
